House Freedom Caucus Is On the Warpath AgainPost Date: 2018-02-16 18:19:27 by Gatlin14 Comments Members of the House Freedom Caucus are at it again. As the Huffington Post's Matt Fuller reports, this time they're more or less threatening a coup against Speaker Paul Ryan unless he sticks to their script on immigration: They want a vote on the restrictionist bill offered by Bob Goodlatte, and they certainly don't want votes on any compromise measure that might emerge from the Senate. They're already upset with Ryan because of the recently passed agreement on spending for the remainder of the fiscal year, along with raising the debt limit and various other measures. The truth, however, is that the conservative radicals are the ones responsible for that bill. Democrats ...

With McCain’s retreat, some turn to Romney to carry his torchPost Date: 2018-02-16 05:21:21 by Gatlin21 Comments Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), right, appears with Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, in January 2012. In more ways than one, followers of traditional Republican orthodoxy are facing an emotional inflection point this week. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), at home battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, will not attend this weekends Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of foreign policy leaders from NATO nations that has become a central clearinghouse for global security matters and a celebration of Western values and democratic institutions. McCain, an avatar of all of the above, has been a regular attendee for decades. Last year, less than a month after ...

Drama on the House floor from the Freedom CaucusPost Date: 2018-02-14 23:19:53 by Gatlin2 Comments DRAMA -- House conservatives almost topple tax vote, by Bernie Becker, Sarah Ferris, and Colin Wilhelm: House conservatives threatened to derail a key tax vote on Monday in an attempt to win more influence over the GOPs spending strategy, just four days before the deadline to fund the government. In a dramatic political stunt, more than a dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus withheld their support for a crucial procedural vote on the GOPs tax bill, threatening an embarrassing blow to GOP leadership. The conservatives eventually relented, approving what had been thought to be a formality  a motion to appoint negotiators to hammer out a final ...

Meet the most powerful man in the HousePost Date: 2018-02-14 23:03:07 by Gatlin1 Comments How Rep. Mark Meadows came to control the Republican agendas future. On a July afternoon in the Capitol Building, in the course of giving his play-by-play of the Senates health care debate, Mark Meadows showed me the call log on his iPhone. The first name was Steve Bannon, followed by Reince Priebus  both of whom would resign from the White House in the coming weeks but who were, at the time, top aides to President Trump. Then, in all caps, came a code name that was hard to miss: VIP POTUS. Meadows tried to play off the names as unusual, a flurry of high-profile calls all flowing from the Senates failed health care push. But in the scheme of Washington today, ...

House Conservatives [Freedom Caucus] Revolt Over ImmigrationPost Date: 2018-02-14 22:08:12 by Gatlin1 Comments Two leaders of the House Freedom Caucus warn they wont support a bad immigration bill. As is traditional during Infrastructure Week, nobody on Capitol Hill is talking about infrastructure. Instead, lawmakers are zeroing in on immigration and the young undocumented immigrants whose protection from deportation expires in March. But while all eyes are on the Senates not-so-freewheeling debate on those issues, the real action is perhaps in the lower chamber. There, House Republicans are grappling with their own path forward on immigrationand on Wednesday morning, internecine tensions boiled over. Representative Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom ...

Freedom Caucus Fires Fresh Warning Shots to Ryan on Immigration ‘Consequences’Post Date: 2018-02-14 22:01:24 by Gatlin4 Comments House Freedom Caucus leaders fired off fresh warning shots Wednesday to Speaker Paul D. Ryan that there will be repercussions if he moves an immigration measure that runs contrary to what President Donald Trump and conservative Republicans campaigned on in 2016. It is the defining moment for this speaker, HFC Chairman Mark Meadows said. If he gets it wrong, it will have consequences for him, but it will also have consequences for the rest of the party. Meadows did not elaborate on what those consequences would be, but some of his caucus members have been clear for months that Ryan striking a bad deal on immigration would potentially be a deathly blow to his ...

Rand Paul tried to do his job, and got the wrath of the Senate in exchangePost Date: 2018-02-14 21:53:02 by Gatlin3 Comments While you were (hopefully) sleeping last Thursday night, the government shut down. The only way most Americans would have noticed is if they were awoken by the shrill, indignant screams coming from senators made furious by having do their jobs. In the wee hours of Friday morning, congressional Republicans passed a bill that blew a $2 trillion-dollar black hole in the deficit, annihilated the budget caps, raised the debt ceiling, and funded all manner of unrelated spending, from agriculture subsidies to child care. All told, the bill amounted to spending that was 311 percent higher than President Obamas final budget request. Senate Republicans, all of whom ran on a platform of ...

Politico/Morning Consult: Republicans take first lead on generic ballotPost Date: 2018-02-14 16:46:53 by Tooconservative5 Comments At times like these, its best to remember the words of philosopher Han Solo, or whatever his name turns out to be next: Nice shooting, kid. Dont get cocky. Cocky is precisely how Democrats find themselves trailing for the first time in a national poll on the 2018 midterms: Republicans have erased the Democratic advantage on the generic congressional ballot in a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll that, for the first time since April, also shows President Donald Trumps approval rating equaling the percentage of voters who disapprove of his job performance. Fully 39 percent of registered voters say they would support the GOP candidate for Congress in their district, ...

Duke prof suggests libertarians are 'on the autism spectrum'Post Date: 2018-02-13 22:06:03 by Gatlin4 Comments A Duke University history professor recently suggested that many of the conservative and libertarian subjects of her book seem to be on the autism spectrum. Nancy MacLean, author of the controversial book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, made the comments during a February 7 lecture at the New York City Unitarian Church of All Souls, where she was slated to discuss the roots and agenda of the radical right. She was delivering a presentation on her books conspiratorial thesis about the American libertarian movement, which she claims originated with Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan. Almost ...

While in Louisville, Chuck Schumer slams Rand Paul's government shutdown as 'hollow'Post Date: 2018-02-13 06:45:32 by Gatlin10 Comments While speaking at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center on Monday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, says Rand Paul is only concerned about deficit when its convenient. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday slammed Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's single-handed effort to stop a budget deal and shut down the government last week. "His idea of railing against the deficit on this bipartisan deal after he supported a $1.5 trillion deficit for tax cuts, 80 percent of which are aimed at the top one percent, is very hollow," Schumer said. Schumer, a New York Democrat, was speaking at the University of Louisville as a guest of Senate Majority Leader Mitch ...

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan: Paul Ryan has 'got problems'[Full Thread]Post Date: 2018-02-12 21:16:41 by Gatlin56 Comments Republican Rep. Jim Jordan: Paul Ryan has 'got problems' Washington (CNN)One of the leading voices of the House Freedom Caucus warned Sunday that House Speaker Paul Ryan was facing problems from fellow Republicans dissatisfied with his leadership. Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said the recently passed government funding agreement, which raises budget caps by $300 billion over two years, was "not consistent" with the promises Republicans made to cut spending, and that Ryan's support for the deal undermined his leadership. "Do I think the speaker has problems? Yes, I do," Jordan said. He noted that Ryan entered the national stage as one of the ...

Freedom Caucus Sounds Off on Leadership Over Budget DealPost Date: 2018-02-12 19:19:41 by Gatlin9 Comments Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., left, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio., voted no on the two-year spending package signed into law last Friday. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) The House Freedom Caucus is not happy with GOP leadership after Democrats and Republicans struck a deal last week to fund the government for two years and avoid another shutdown until at least March 23. The package President Donald Trump signed Friday morning raises the debt limit, provides an additional $300 billion for defense and domestic programs over two years, and allocates relief dollars for natural disaster victims.Most Freedom Caucus members are furious over what they consider wasteful spending and a ...

The Tea Party [Freedom Caucus], Not Democrats or Republicans, Is the Problem[Full Thread]Post Date: 2018-02-12 06:00:36 by Gatlin52 Comments The Tea Party [Freedom Caucus], Not Democrats or Republicans, Is the Problem. Its de rigueur to decry partisanship as Washingtons real problem. Lets get realthe most destructive force in American politics today is the Tea Party, says Jon Favreau. So now that our government is open and able to pay its bills, what soon-to-be-forgotten lessons have we learned from this sorry fiasco?Perhaps most important is the reminder that political temper tantrums in Washington exact a toll that goes far beyond unfavorable headlines and worse-than-dog-poo poll numbers. This decision hurt people. Some families couldnt pay their bills. Others had nowhere ...

The Tea Party Is Officially Dead. It Was Killed By Partisan Politics.Post Date: 2018-02-11 21:32:08 by Gatlin4 Comments It has finally happened: The Tea Party is dead. The grassroots movement that fought so hard for fiscal sanity in government over the past decade is no more. It was killed off by the very same Washington establishment it sought to overthrow. Its death leaves proponents of limited government with some big questions: What went wrong? And what do we do now? For me, it's personal. For years, the Tea Party was my life, and I have the the battle scarsand tattoosto prove it. When I was the President of FreedomWorks, I worked side by side with tens of thousands of citizen activists as a Tea Party organizer, organizing protests and knocking on doors, hoping to topple the Goliath ...

Tea Party, Freedom Caucus still have power, Paul, Jordan sayPost Date: 2018-02-11 20:50:51 by Gatlin1 Comments Rep. Jim Jordan on future for congressional deficit hawksbr> Ohio Republican Jim Jordan on whether the bipartisan budget deal took the teeth out of his hardline House Freedom Caucus. Conservative Capitol Hill lawmakers Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Rand Paul railed Sunday against fellow Republicans agreeing to a recent budget deal that increases federal spending by $400 billion and insisted that the Tea Party movement and other fiscal-minded groups are still alive. This was not consistent with what the American people elected us to do, Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News Sunday two days after Congress passed the two-year deal that includes roughly $400 billion in new ...

Rand Paul seizes anti-Fed mantle to imperil Trump’s Fed nomineePost Date: 2018-02-11 13:57:31 by Gatlin8 Comments Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Thursday he will vote against Marvin Goodfriend's bid to become a member of the Federal Reserve board, a move that could sink the nomination on the Senate floor. Goodfriend, nominated by President Donald Trump, was approved by the Senate Banking Committee in a 13-12 party-line vote, indicating that he is unlikely to receive any Democratic support. With Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) out for health reasons, any Republican no vote could defeat his nomination. Paul is an outspoken Fed critic, and his father while in Congress once introduced a bill specifically condemning the economists idea for a carry tax. Goodfriend suggested the ...

Rand Paul revels in role of Senate troublemaker[Full Thread]Post Date: 2018-02-11 05:09:05 by Gatlin50 Comments Rand Paul seems to revel in frustrating fellow members of the Senate  and that makes his blatant disregard for the chambers chummy protocols even more infuriating to them. Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, appeared to thumb his nose at fellow Republicans Thursday night when he posed for a picture with conservative Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) just off the Senate floor. They posed with their arms folded, grinning for the camera in the midst of a government shutdown fight that Paul himself had triggered. The snapshot was especially galling to Republicans because the trio posed in front of the Senate portrait of Henry Clay, the 19th century ...

Zito: Rise Of The Rust-Belt Democrats [Tim Ryan]Post Date: 2018-02-10 14:52:19 by Tooconservative2 Comments If the buzz surrounding a possible challenger for the White House can be measured by the number of times that person is invited to another state, then there's a lot of buzz around Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan. Interest goes up even higher when the states they're invited to hold early caucus and primary contests. So far, the Democratic congressman from Ohio's Mahoning Valley has been to New Hampshire three times and Iowa twice. Why? "I was invited," he answers matter-of-factly. "Look, people ask me, 'What are you doing in Iowa and New Hampshire?' I say, 'I got invited.' I don't just show up in Iowa. Then, I got invited back. I got invited to New ...

Libertarian Party Blocks Ron Paul & Judge Napolitano, Revealing Neocon TakeoverPost Date: 2018-02-05 09:42:28 by Deckard1 Comments The new Libertarian Party just claimed that the godfather of the modern libertarian movement, Ron Paul has no idea what the Libertarian Party represents. This week, The Free Thought Project was contacted by Michael Heise, founder of the Libertarian Party Mises Caucus who provided us with evidence that leaders within the Libertarian party have blocked Libertarian icon Ron Paul from appearing at their national convention, over comments he made about how the party needed to stick to principles instead of playing politics as usual. This past year, Heise has been on a mission to shake up the Libertarian Party and steer it back in the direction of its originstowards the ...

Robert Mueller Requests Postponement of General Mike Flynn Sentencing…Post Date: 2018-01-31 20:54:25 by Gatlin5 Comments Against a newly discovered likelihood the Robert Mueller investigation began under false pretenses; and against the backdrop that FBI surveillance and wiretaps were obtained through materially (intentionally) false representations to the FISA court; and against the backdrop the original Flynn plea judge (Contrereas) was also the approving FISA judge; and that judge was summarily recused from the case; and against increasing evidence that Mike Flynn was set up by a terminal animus, and politically-motivated investigative rogue unit, operating within the FBI; and against surfacing IG Horowitz evidence that FBI investigators manipulated (lied on) their FD-302 interrogation ...

Rep. Trey Gowdy to leave Congress, becoming latest high-profile committee chairman to retire (anti-Trump sentiment spreads)Post Date: 2018-01-31 14:08:21 by hondo682 Comments Video Gowdy: Recovered FBI texts show the 'fix was in' House Oversight Committee chairman says the recovered texts between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page show 'manifest bias' for Hillary Clinton and against President Trump. #Tucker South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, announced Wednesday that he is retiring from Congress at the end of his term, becoming the latest high-profile committee chairman to opt against re-election.I will not be filing for re-election to Congress nor seeking any other political or elected office; instead I will be returning to the justice system, Gowdy said in a statement. The ...

Heads Explode As Julian Assange Exposes Trump’s “Subservience” to Terrorist Saudi ArabiaPost Date: 2018-01-31 06:31:23 by Deckard6 Comments"Everyone loves WikiLeaks when we're publishing information about those that they politically oppose." WikiLeaks Founder, Julian AssangeDuring the 2016 election cycle, Julian Assanges WikiLeaks dropped revelation after revelation exposing the corruption within the DNC. With the release of the Podesta emails, Americans quickly found out just how vile a candidate for president Hillary Clinton was. By exposing Clinton, all of the sudden, WikiLeaks and Assange had a newfound followingTrump supporters. Deplorables and MAGA folks alike flocked to WikiLeaks as they red pilled themselves to the establishments corruption using WikiLeaks information. ...

About That 'Blue Wave...'Post Date: 2018-01-29 10:07:32 by Tooconservative0 Comments Now that we've all had a year-long respite from Washington electoral politics (stop laughing), it's time once again for journalists to resume retailing their favorite narrative -- the horse race. Fortunately for them, this year they can combine it with their Trump hatred and their fondness for the "resistance" and thus turn nearly every story about the president, the Republicans, conservatives and everybody else they loathe into the Left's Coming Revenge on Trump. In this scenario, the electorate is finally waking up from a long hangover; revolted, the righteous, female-dominated, Democrat-voting majority will now rise up at the ballot box, recapture the House, and ...

Trump’s First Year Was a Successful War on Obama’s EightPost Date: 2018-01-28 15:27:02 by Gatlin5 Comments If you wanted to celebrate Donald Trumps first full year in office, there are a number of ways you could go about it. You could talk about how he presided over one of the most remarkable economic boom periods in recent American memory, all but erasing the stain of the Great Recession. You could talk about how he let the military loose on ISIS, finally destroying the last remnants of their so-called Caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Or you could talk about the recently-passed tax reform bill, which will give millions of Americans immediate, important relief from the long arm of the IRS. You could even start and stop with the nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil ...

Trump's 'go-yuuuuge' 'in-their-face' DACA dealPost Date: 2018-01-27 08:52:59 by Gatlin3 Comments President Trump's proposed deal with the Democrats on legalizing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients in exchange for a border wall, an end to the visa lottery, and an end to chain migration, is drawing some cautions from the right, as Ed Straker's piece on radio host Mark Levin's thoughts shows. But I think another radio host, Bill Mitchell, paints what's going on better. Far from this being a classic Republican cave-in, the DACA proposal probably a clever Trumpian deal to outsmart the Democrats and leave them out on their ear. After all, while ending illegal immigration and restoring rule of law is important to conservatives, it's not going to be easy ...